Thomas Canning

Thomas Canning (December 12, 1911 – October 4, 1989) was a composer and music educator, serving as a professor of composition and music theory at the Eastman school and as composer-in-residence at West Virginia University. He also held appointments at Morningside College, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and the Royal Conservatory of Music. In his composition work, he created music for specific occasions or ceremonies, focusing on hymns and choral works, and collaborated with poets Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams to create music in conjunction with their works. His best-known orchestral work, Fantasy on a Hymn by Justin Morgan (1944), was recorded by Leopold Stokowski and Howard Hanson.

Canning was born in Brookville, PA, on December 12, 1911. He matriculated at Oberlin College, where he studied composition under Normand Lockwood, receiving a B.M. in 1936. He received an M.A. from the Eastman School of Music in 1940, studying with Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers.

After receiving his degree from Eastman, Canning taught music theory and composition at Morningside College (1936–1941) and Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1945–1946). In 1946, he took a position with Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto, teaching music theory in the RCM’s newly created MBac program for training secondary and elementary school music teachers. Canning was appointed Assistant Professor of Theory at Eastman in 1947 and taught there until 1961, when he left for a year to serve at the University of Hull as a Fulbright professor. In 1963 Canning was hired as an associate professor at the newly opened Creative Arts Center at West Virginia University, receiving promotion to full professor in 1967, retiring in 1977. Canning belonged to the American Composers Alliance, The Hymn Society of America, and Pi Kappa Lambda, and was an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.

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